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Saint Paul Trois Chateaux: 1948
There are those who say life is a pathway one paves with many time, space, questions, answers, desires, fulfillment, and loss. They believe we carefully arrange each for cause and consequence to give life order and structure. Life, however, provides an alternative outlook, where it lays its elements according to its own will. The pavement is not carefully arranged; rather the elements lay loosely, and in between them are the white spaces that we fill with joy, sorrow, and the depth of what it means to be human. For Thibaut and Pierre-Auguste Desmarais, Lucy Nightingberg's return visit for a night in Amaury Babin's pub La Place de St-Paul will bring their individual paths into sharp relief. Over the course of one evening, memories, sudden recollections, and immediate emotions give rise to passion, longing, and the unveiling of beclouded secrets, as a delicate dance of fervent love and redemption roils. Unannounced glimpses into their pasts glue pieces of the story together, and an understanding of the narrative in its entirety is constructed from which a truth might be gleaned. A rich emotional tableau is the setting for an evening of love, passion, atonement in C. JoyBell C.’s new novella. Full of extraordinary depth and a keen sense for the primal needs of her disparate characters, her profound understanding of the human condition is reminiscent of the classics Madame Bovary and Wuthering Heights. As past and present collide, the author’s focus on the universal and her fierce characterizations make this modern update of classic romanticism succeed where many fail, utilizing the underlying human experience to serve as a foundation to take a classic literary style and make it new. Though it is no small feat capturing the aesthetic of modern drama while simultaneously retaining the depth of a previous literary form, Saint Paul Trois Châ 1948 accomplishes this task with ease and aplomb, consistently delivering startling moments of emotion the likes of which are rare indeed.
138 pages, Paperback
First published March 20, 2011
12 people are currently reading
510 people want to read
About the author
C. JoyBell C.
15 books3,066 followersC. JoyBell C. is the most frequently quoted Author on Goodreads, is a leading female Thinker and Writer in our world today, and is a Mentor to many modern-day Leaders, as well as an Inspirational Figure to people from all walks of life. She has transformed the face of what it means to be wise and knowledgable, giving life to a new image of the modern-day Renaissance Woman. She is at the same time both timeless and youthful. The Author of various books on Soul Alchemy, Esoterica, Poetry, Philosophy of Mind, Parenting and Fiction; she remains accessible to her readers and in touch with her fans.
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Become a part of my FaceBook family, today! I will be so happy to have you! Also, you can follow me on Instagram: @cjoybellc I would be happy to see you there!
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Become a part of my FaceBook family, today! I will be so happy to have you! Also, you can follow me on Instagram: @cjoybellc I would be happy to see you there!
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 26, 2011
I was tempted to give this book five stars, but it's a literary work, and given that I don't typically read literature, I hardly feel qualified to say there is no work within this one's category that exceeds it. It impressed me, though, and that's my benchmark for a four-star book; that it rise above others of its sort that I have read, and mark itself as a rarity.
Like its heroine, the story is capricious and mercurial, vaulting between emotions, times and even tenses like a dancer in the most acrobatic of ballets, a lithe, elegant form delirious with passion and expressive impulse. If you told me that the entire thing had been written in a single sitting, in some mad, 36-hour compulsion that left its author's tendons inflamed and fingers near paralytic with cramps, I would believe you. And if you told me that it had been written over the course of ten years abroad researching every detail of the setting, then meticulously drafting and redrafting and editing each turn of phrase to achieve an impression of reckless spontaneity, I would also believe you. This work either flowed from its author in a cascade of emotion and vitality, or has been precisely crafted to produce that effect. In either case, it left me convinced that C. JoyBell C. is a person wildly alive, struck through with wonderment and awe at the world around us, and intent on communicating those sensations with the rest of humanity.
In Lucy, the author has managed to invest seemingly the entire catalogue of delightful female mannerisms and a spectrum of moods no less bright or fluid than the rays from a prism that might wash across the wave-tossed deck of a ship at sea, if some student of optics were to hold it aloft in demonstration to his fellow passengers. And this despite the fact that the story itself is mostly dark and night-bound, full of tempest-tossed moments that tell us how it feels to be cold and drenched and muddied, both inside and out.
It's a conversational story, in its structure and also in its ambitions. The present action consists almost entirely of two people talking, although their omissions are by and large as important as the words that they speak. But in making us guess and wonder and fill in a great many gaps, the author seems to want to engage the reader in a dialogue -- to make the reader a part of these discussions, with their turmoil of expression and repression, their mysteriously veering and ricocheting passions.
I was thoroughly mesmerized by "Saint Paul Trois Chatueax," and had circumstances permitted, would likely have read it all at one stretch. I hope that the author's life is as vibrant as this work makes Life seem.
Like its heroine, the story is capricious and mercurial, vaulting between emotions, times and even tenses like a dancer in the most acrobatic of ballets, a lithe, elegant form delirious with passion and expressive impulse. If you told me that the entire thing had been written in a single sitting, in some mad, 36-hour compulsion that left its author's tendons inflamed and fingers near paralytic with cramps, I would believe you. And if you told me that it had been written over the course of ten years abroad researching every detail of the setting, then meticulously drafting and redrafting and editing each turn of phrase to achieve an impression of reckless spontaneity, I would also believe you. This work either flowed from its author in a cascade of emotion and vitality, or has been precisely crafted to produce that effect. In either case, it left me convinced that C. JoyBell C. is a person wildly alive, struck through with wonderment and awe at the world around us, and intent on communicating those sensations with the rest of humanity.
In Lucy, the author has managed to invest seemingly the entire catalogue of delightful female mannerisms and a spectrum of moods no less bright or fluid than the rays from a prism that might wash across the wave-tossed deck of a ship at sea, if some student of optics were to hold it aloft in demonstration to his fellow passengers. And this despite the fact that the story itself is mostly dark and night-bound, full of tempest-tossed moments that tell us how it feels to be cold and drenched and muddied, both inside and out.
It's a conversational story, in its structure and also in its ambitions. The present action consists almost entirely of two people talking, although their omissions are by and large as important as the words that they speak. But in making us guess and wonder and fill in a great many gaps, the author seems to want to engage the reader in a dialogue -- to make the reader a part of these discussions, with their turmoil of expression and repression, their mysteriously veering and ricocheting passions.
I was thoroughly mesmerized by "Saint Paul Trois Chatueax," and had circumstances permitted, would likely have read it all at one stretch. I hope that the author's life is as vibrant as this work makes Life seem.
June 27, 2011
This book is a masterpiece!It is full of emotion that comes out of the pages in an amazingly powerful way and makes the reader feel what the characters feel.C.Joybell C. has the gift to touch the heart,the mind and the soul of the reader and she knows the human soul in a unique way.It`s an unforgettable story that absorbed me from the very first page!I definitely recommend it to everyone!
June 19, 2013
Mon litte évasion français! Très profond, très réfléchie. A very French rendition delivered by a non-French author, I am impressed! It is this book which led me to become a devout fan of the author C. JoyBell C., I have never come across an American author able to write like the French and in a French setting, albeit!
The dialogue is immensely gratifying, highly inquisitive, and terribly revealing, yet enough is left to the imagination to allow the reader to think on his own! I like this intelligent style of writing that allows me to utilize my own imagination and my own intellect! I am tired of the boring-style writing of stupid folk out there. This is an intelligent, deeply-moving read!
I felt as though I was watching an award-winning movie! Will definitely be keeping this book on my shelf to share with toute ma famille et amis!
The dialogue is immensely gratifying, highly inquisitive, and terribly revealing, yet enough is left to the imagination to allow the reader to think on his own! I like this intelligent style of writing that allows me to utilize my own imagination and my own intellect! I am tired of the boring-style writing of stupid folk out there. This is an intelligent, deeply-moving read!
I felt as though I was watching an award-winning movie! Will definitely be keeping this book on my shelf to share with toute ma famille et amis!
April 3, 2011
Unforgettable. Destined to become a classic. Something unmistakably beautiful that cannot be caught: like a beautiful flying bird! Will definitely read this over again and again. Recommend it? 100 %.
March 27, 2013
This short work was reminiscent of Anais Nin at its best and rough drafts I read in college workshops at its worst. The author seems to have a lot of promise, and I'd give her another chance.
October 17, 2015
I didn't understand this one at all. I may have to reread to understand what was happening.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews